PUNE, Oct 29: Like any other athlete, Nanda Jadhav, a long distance runner, too had dreamt big. Only her aspirations stretched beyond conquests on the tracks: of a happy married life which every girl dreams of..Her own father had labelled her ``unattractive,'' and advised her to throw herself into social work. But that did not dampen her spirit. Neither was she deterred by the fact that she would never be able to conceive.This is the story of a Chhatrapati Shivaji award winner driven to suicide, allegedly by the very man who responded to a matrimonial advertisement she herself had inserted two years back. So says her father Shankar Jadhav in a police complaint he lodged after his daughter succumbed to 90 per cent burns on Saturday.Jadhav had himself boycotted his daughter's wedding, and refused to ever visit her matrimonial home. However, in his police complaint now he holds her husband and in-laws ``who tortured her physically and mentally,'' responsible for ``driving her to suicide.''Stepping out of her humble origins in a village near Satara, the diminutive Nanda blazed a trail in the athletic field. She became the first woman athlete from Maharashtra to represent the country in marathons from Warsaw in Poland, to New Zealand, Hong Kong, Belgium and France. Known as the barefooted athlete, Nanda's 14-year-long career boasts of former national records in the 5000 and 10000 metre races.However, a knee injury stopped in the tracks a career that yielded, apart from fame, a Maruti 800, land in Satara, and a bungalow in Hadapsar - which is what husband Deepak Ghanshyam, a stenographer in an income-tax office, and his family had set their eyes on, alleges Jadhav. He even says that her in-laws were suspicious of her character, says police sub-inspector R Shingte, who is investigating the case.Suddenly, it was this long-distance runner's womanhood that marked the line between life and death. Undergoing prolonged treatment for a gynaecological deficiency that would not let her bear a child, her father claims this was the stick that her in-laws used to ``torture her physically and mentally.''However, mystery shrouds the death of this star. For, Nanda stated in her dying declaration that she suffered burns when the stove she was cooking on burst. Not one word from the athlete mentioning torture, ever reach her family in Satara by letter or phones. And her neighbours' lips in the middle-class Pratik Nagar, Yerawada, are sealed tight, say the police.While Nanda's dream to set up an athlete's academy for rural athletes was extinguished in the blaze that snatched her life, her achievements in athletics mark the triumph of tenacity against all adversity.Daughter of a school teacher in Ashta, Nanda's talents were first acknowledged when she won the bronze at an inter-university meet in 1985 at Nainital. And then there was no looking back for this athlete who even ran cross-country barefoot, representing India 10 times in her 14 years in professional athletics. From representing Maharashtra in the '85-86 national games in Delhi and bagging the gold in the 1500m and 3000m category in record time, three golds in the Kerala national games, two golds in Pune national games, to four-times Allahabad marathon champion, and once in Mumbai and Delhi. And now her husband, his brother, sister and mother sulk in custody, for their alleged role in driving this athlete and her visions to death, barely a week before her 30th birthday.
